Con games are different – Players don’t read

In part one of my series on the difference between a con game and a campaign game I was looking at the fact that in a con game, you don’t know who your players might be. This post looks at one of the implications – they don’t know what you have.

They won’t know at least one of the character, the setting or the system. If you’re unlucky they won’t know all three. Even if you had stuff ready prior to the first session and the player took it, you can’t count on them actually taking it in. In a campaign game, you have time to interact with and educate a player on what they missed.

Want to write a game for Pheno?

I’ve volunteered for the position of writer wrangler for Pheno. So, I’d like to extend an invitation for writers to create a game for the con in June next year :)

Rule Zero: Don't be a...

I'm going to share the best piece of gaming advice I've ever recieved. The present form originates in Houses of the Blooded, and has been incorporated into a number of ongoing Live-Action Roleplaying (LARP) campaigns locally. It's such a good, solid, simple piece of advice that I've applied it to con games (freeform and tabletop), broader gaming contexts, and life in general.

The rule is: Don't be a dick.*

Simple, solid.

Why are we so special?

There’s a lot of us vs. theming going on at the moment in my world, for a wide variety of “us” and “them”, rather than join in I thought I would walk through an Australian convention and point out the bits we do differently from everyone else.

The poker chip game

One of the things I've been struggling with for a little while now has been for players to strongly engage with the themes of my games. In my most recent game, I tried to invert that – make the themes one of the biggest parts for the players to engage with. To do it, I used poker chips.

The secret plan

I have a secret plan for Pheno next year. I’m not able to play or run the length of the con next year, so I’ve had to come up with something I can do in one or two sessions max. Something that will run equally well with a partial team of three, or a full freeform of 40.

Bad convention RPG challenge

A couple of days ago, I did an analysis of what made a bad convention roleplaying game. I came up with a list which was different from the elements which make up a good convention roleplaying game, so now I have a challenge.

I’d like to see people write more bad convention games. Seriously, I would.

What makes a bad convention roleplaying game?

For me, this question is just as revealing as its opposite. When I put the survey together for what made a good game I also asked what made a game bad.

I had a sneaking suspicion that there would be a different set of elements mentioned for a bad game (not merely the opposite of those elements which make up a good game). It turned out I was sort of right and sort of wrong.

What makes a good convention roleplaying game?

Asking what makes up a good game I think is a prerequisite of any RPG blogger, so I thought I’d get this one up and out of the way :) I put together a survey, as I figured a group consensus would be a good thing.

The question I asked was, “From con games you have played in the past couple of years (up to four years ago), can you let me know the three you came out of thinking that it was a brilliant game, real top shelf stuff. Not just three you played recently that were cool, but three of the best. What struck you in particular about why those games were so good?” After analysing the responses, I don’t think this was the best question I could have asked. More on this later.